I’m the Queen, or Not…

Today I get to be the queen. A queen on the day before her birthday, no less. It’s the day before the queen’s birthday that she looks forward to. The day after her birthday is the day that she has to go to all the high society parties in her honor and sit through endless formalities in her honor. But on the day before her birthday she gets to do what she wants, however she wants it.

I want my breakfast in bed at seven thirty on a silver tray. Served with hot garden tea out of very pretty tea things. Then I shall have a shower, no a bath in the hot tub, and then I shall get dressed in my perfectly fitting most comfortable, me-ish , clothing and go down for my interview with the housekeeper whom I will instruct to clean the whole castle from top to bottom just so-so. (She of course delegates to the servants.) Then I go to visit the cook in the huge kitchen. (On my last birthday I gave the cook the day off and cooked myself just for fun. But she made me do all the dishes then too, so I decided that this birthday I was going to do something different.) We menu plan for the week and I give her a check for a monstrous amount and say, “Buy what you need and don’t be stingy.”

I then go visit the nurse maid and my son. The nurse maid is dismissed for an hour and I spend a nice happy visit with my already bathed and fresh son.

Then I go out to the garden and find the gardener and tell him that the lawn simply must be mowed this weekend and please make sure my mother’s seeds from the kingdom across the sea get planted today. And he smiles at me fondly and says, “Yes ma’am, as you wish ma’am,” and gets busy. Because all the servants love me of course. As I stroll out to the carriage waiting for me I stop to admire the huge goldfish in the pond.

And then I go shopping. I suppose that most queens don’t go shopping like this one does. But my whole kingdom knows I enjoy shopping so they indulge me. Of course, I never allow anyone to give back any change, so they all love it when I come shopping. Today I am buying shoes. Any shoes I like and at least three pairs. And if I get tired of shoes I shall look at purses. Sometime during the day I shall bump into a good friend from olden days, or a sister, and we shall finish the trip together, complete with coffee shops and expensive dining experiences. Towards supper time I shall get in my carriage and speed home to spend prepare for my evening with the king.

And I’m not sure what the king and I shall do together but we shall enjoy ourselves immensely.

Thank you for visiting my castle.

What? You mean I have to do my own cleaning, cooking, and gardening today? And be my own nursemaid? Fine, see if I ever invite you to my castle again! Oh, and you would have to mention that it’s the king’s birthday tomorrow, not mine. Fine, I’m out of here…

Odd Memories

I keep thinking about the days of the squirrels in our house. So today I sat down and wrote about it. Here it is. Forgive me for any typos or grammatical errors. I’m quite tired and can’t quite see straight. But here it is.

Squirrels in the Stone House

The first encounter took place between Jenny and the squirrel.  Jenny and I had bravely decided to sleep in the basement on the bed that for some reason or other was set up in the big unfinished part of the basement. We left the washroom light on because the basement really is dark and scary at night. In the middle of the night I was rudely awakened by Jenny screaming and thrashing around in the bed. I wasn’t sure what all the excitement was about but I figured I’d better scream too. Funny what happens to our logic under those kinds of circumstances at that time of the night. So there we clung to each other shrieking. After a bit I saw a small animal disappear into the washroom. Jenny then informed me that it was that animal that had awakened her –it had been “huffling” around under the blankets.

Mom and Dad heard us squalling two stories up and to this day Clark regrets that he didn’t hear it from the next room. Huh, missed that party I guess. Anyway, Mom met us upstairs and tucked us into our normal, much safer bed. But we still couldn’t figure out what the critter was. It looked like a squirrel to me, but it was too small.

A week or so later Mom and Dad discovered that the beast was a flying squirrel. They caught him playing in the coats hanging under the steps.

Over this time we also had borders living out in what is now called “the boys’ cabin.” Dad discovered that they could put rat poisoning in the gap between the upstairs floor and the living room ceiling then shine a flashlight down the register and watch the squirrels eat. Jenny and I were tucked in bed one night and the guys were watching them through the register in the hall. All we could see of the fun was one of their back ends sticking into our bedroom through the open door. As little girls, we made hay on the fun possibilities before us—it was one of the borders we never really learned to know or like very well. But we never would have dared to actually do anything. We sure had a nice giggle party though.

The squirrels always stank terribly when they died in the walls—sometimes to the point of causing occupants to move out of their bedrooms for a while. Dreadful, I assure you.

We were headed out to PA for Lorinda’s wedding at five o’clock in the morning when anther squirrel made its appearance in the living room. Dad roared around with a broom after it for a while but gave up and somehow the squirrel disappeared and that left puzzlement in my mind.

Once we rid ourselves of the flying squirrels, the regular squirrels migrated inside to spend the winter. Mom was tucking us into bed one night when I had to run to the bathroom downstairs one last time. I encountered a squirrel under the dining room table, and being and excitable adolescent at the time, jumped and hollered—not once, but twice. When I got back upstairs and told Mom what I’d seen she said, “I figured, but why two shrieks?” I don’t know. I just remember it didn’t feel “finished” somehow after the first one.

We watched a mama squirrel mover her babies out of the house one spring. She brought them down the rocks outside on the dining room window sill. Mom didn’t have the heart to shoot them. Dad, of course, wondered why she didn’t. The logic was, “she was moving out anyway.”

Today’s Mess

This is why people use baby powder rather than the real ant poisoning to keep critters out of their cabinets.

 

At least he’s happy and healthy again. I love my baby! He’s decided he can walk now too. He’ll be a year old on Sunday and I can hardly believe it.

Our New Toy…

Today Dru went to Home Pro and bought this cute little yellow lawn mower. He even got a free weed eater with it.

 

He said, “It really does feel like  vacuuming your front lawn.” I never saw electric lawnmowers until we came to Thailand. Do you think we’ll run over the cord?

 

 

Jube’s New Helmet…

Because we like our motorbike better than our car—the car not always giving us an overall feeling of trust towards it. The helmet is still a snitch big, but won’t be for long. It’s a panda bear helmet. The first time he wore it he was decidedly against it and screamed fitfully for nearly ten minutes while his mother held her hand over his mouth and his father went driving down the rode. Since then he hasn’t seemed to mind it.

I think he thinks it’s a tad heavy—but he does very well at holding it up when he’s on the bike gawking at everything that goes by on both sides of the bike.

A Quiet Note From Thailand...

We're home. After two long months in the USA and a long flight back, we're home. And it's quiet. Just roosters, birds, the neighbors on their quiet morning walks, and a vehicle once in a great while going by. My yard is all green. My rose bush decided to turn into a vine and start growing on the fence. Which would be fine but now it's not blooming. I think it popped out below the graft. I'm going to extricate my potted plants and put them in the dirt I think. I'm going to plant the flower seeds from my mom too.

Last night neither of my men could stay awake past 7:00. I had taken a nap but Dru hadn't. So they went to sleep. We turned the light out at 7:30 when I gave up on keeping them awake. Jube seems to be the only one with jet lag around here. Dru was awake with him for a half hour last night and managed to get him to go back to sleep for a while. I woke up around 4:30 this morning because Jube did and he's still playing. It's nearly 7:30. He's blinking slowly, so will take a nap here in a bit. Dru slept 'til 6:00. I woke him up because I was hungry and there wasn't any breakfast in the house.

My dear man emptied all the suitcases yesterday while I napped. Now I just have odds and ends to put away today. And there's laundry to do, but not much. I tried to have most of it done up at Mom's. So glad I did. I'm having a hard time operating today.

Jube is crawling around in only a diaper today. When we got in it was hot and humid. They say it was quite cool until a day or so ago. It hasn't rained so it's warming up again.

Now I'm dreaming about how to make this house more homey. It needs some wall hangings and some cushions. It was nice to go back to my Mom's house for inspiration. This poor house seemed rather bare when we got in yesterday. It needs some homeyization.

I'll blog pictures about the trip and stuff later. I don't even have pictures on this computer right now. It will come in stitches and snatches I'm afraid. The idea of blogging two months at one sitting is rather overwhelming.